Page 90 of Blood & Throttle
Two field medics work over her like machines—one suturing a deep gash across her side, the other adjusting the wires running from her IV port. They don’t glance up. They don’t need to.
They know the fury that just walked in doesn’t care for excuses.
Riot steps forward, slow, controlled. His hand curls into a fist at his side.
I move closer, but the sight guts me.
Because this? This wasn’t a warning.
This was retribution.
My throat’s tight.
My ears ring.
And all I can think is, she wasn’t supposed to be in this.
She doesn’t race. She doesn’t kill.
She’s just one of us.
Was.
My voice is thin. Barely mine. “She wasn’t even armed…”
Riot doesn’t look at me.
Not because he doesn’t care but because he can’t without losing the fragile leash he’s keeping wrapped around his rage.
“They wanted us to find her like this,” Ghost mutters behind me. “To make sure we knew.”
“They used her as a message,” I say, but it comes out like a confession.
Because it was meant for me.
Riot killed Jace’s crew for putting me in their sights.
Iput a bullet in Ash before the checkpoint.
And now…
Now Doc is lying there, barely holding on.
“I’m going to kill him,” Riot says, voice flat and steady.
Not a threat.
Asentence.
“I’m going to make sure Jace never takes another breath. I’ll gut him in the middle of a Syndicate broadcast and send pieces to whatever’s left of his team. And if they come for me, they’ll go down screaming.”
I step up beside him, close enough to feel the heat rolling off him.
“You’re not doing this alone.”
He turns toward me like he’s about to argue.
I don’t let him.
